Another friend asked me to make edits to her company's site... Most of the edits will be a cakewalk, but they also would like some new content inserted into their flash slideshows.

Please see the site here: http://www.aquatechdewatering.com/index.shtml

The issue I have before even getting started is that I don't know what kind of source materials they have. Don't know if the have the original flash project or only the compiled swf that's currently on the web.

I've never made a flash slideshow before, but I don't imagine I'd have that hard a time modifying an existing one if I had the original project files. That is, as long as Adobe Flash CS4 is the suitable software to work on it.

So what am I looked at here? What if they don't have a project file and sources? Can anything be done to modify the already existing SWF using Flash CS4?

I'm waiting for an answer now as to original sources for the swf as well as their entire web hierarchy. For the rest of the pages I'm fine with downloading their entire site if they don't have the sources.

Tell them they should use a jQuery plugin instead?

I can't tell them they need to re-implement anything on a large scale, because it's me that's supposed to do some of this work. And get paid for doing it if I don't tell them to go elsewhere.

But yes, I agree, this should be done with javascript rather than flash in an ideal site. They're also using tables all over the site and have some over-stuffed keyword meta tags. I'm not about to tell them they need to fix all that too though.

That slideshow software is XML driven. So, adding more images should be as easy as editing the XML (or adding a new one, etc) and putting the images in the right directory.

Donato, thanks so much for the link. I'm not sure why I didn't clue in that the "v3" was part of the name of the creator app/plugin.

I'm not sure at this point if the images are actually stored in a folder or inside a single swf file.

If I could look at their server I'd find out quickly, but I'm still waiting for that info.

* EDIT *

Jebus, whoever worked on that site didn't even include an htaccess file to stop people from listing directories... Newb...

List of the slideshow config (xml) files...
http://www.aquatechdewatering.com/v3flashslideshow/

Here's one of the folders one of the slideshows pulls images from:
http://www.aquatechdewatering.com/gallery/main_enviro_serv/

So it looks like it's a simple edit to the xml files and then just edit and send up an image into the appropriate folder. Straight forward.

Heh. Maybe you can upload an .htaccess file while you're in there.

Ooo. Maybe the flash app requires that directories be listable in order to work. Hehehe.